In the claws of love and terror
by Heartbroken Renegade
Summary: Lucy and Lockwood are out on a case, searching for the source of a visitor at a hotel. At first, everything seems easy. But it turns out that things are more complicated then they first seem. Suddenly Lucy is in danger and is facing the biggest threat she's ever encountered: a ghost with the abilities to control and manipulate her mind.


Lockyle fanfic, in the claws of love and terror

"Duck!" I screamed.

"Ouch!" Too late. The rapier flew threw the air in an elegant bow and hit Lockwood in the head (luckily with the handle, not the sharp edge) with a muffled thud.

"Sorry!"

"Lucy the next time I employ someone new, make sure to remind to ask if the know how to throw things!"

"Oh shut up, George is even worse then me, remember the Creeping Shadow case?"

"But that turned out to be an advantage, right?"

I yelled something, I don't remember what (probably something like get out of the way. Hopefully nothing important) and threw a magnesium flare at the Visitor.

So, let's just pause for a moment and do a quick analyse of the situation:

Lockwood and his employee Lucy Carlyle (me) are for the moment in an attic, trying to fight off a dangerous type two ghost. Lockwood has (accidentally of course) dropped his bloody rapier so I have thrown him my rapier, ending up throwing it in his head since I am fucking worthless at throwing things. So Lockwood has taken a step back, stumbling on something and is for the moment tumbling backwards, dangerously close to the window while I am trying to find the source of a (for the moment weak) visitor in the form of a girl with long blond hair and a bloody dress: a girl who had been raped and brutally murdered here, fifteen years ago. The weather outside is... frightful. And we have no delightful fire, but an arctic temperature because of the god damn visitor. The visitor is as I said a blond girl wearing a white dress with pink flowers and big, dark red stains on it. She is (understandably) very noisy and very, very sad. Summary: I am standing in the middle of the attic, trying to locate the source as well as practicing my trying-not-to-die-while-fighting-off-ghosts-skills (I'm getting better every day) and Lockwood is doing the I-got-a-rapier-in-the-head-and-stumbled-on-some-unidentified-object-dance, dangerously close to the window. George was home at Portland Row 35 together with Holly. Conclusion: things weren't looking too bright for us. But if there's one thing I've learned here at Lockwood & co., it's that when everything looks dark, things have a tendency of turn into your favour again (and in the other way around too). It was with this in mind that I, swinging my iron chains, began backing in Lockwood's direction (Lockwood had stopped tumbling and was trying to find my rapier which he of course had dropped). I don't know exactly what I was planning. Probably I was planning to grab one of Lockwood's magnesium flares and throw it at the visitor or something like that. What I definitely wasn't planning to do, was crashing through the rotten floorboards, down into a pitch black, and if possible even colder room. For a moment I panicked. The rational part of my brain was saying that the cold and the rattle of spiders I could hear in the darkness meant that the source was near. The more primitive side of me was yelling "THANKS FOR THE INFORMATION. CAN WE GO NOW BEFORE WE ALL GET KILLED?!" (I must confess that I was tempted to do the later.).

But I stayed. I quickly put the iron chains in a circle around me, and not a minute too late: as I turned around, the thing that was covering my entire view, was the pale face of the ghost girl. I shrieked, and nearly jumped out of the circle. She was even scarier close up. Her blond bangs were so long they entirely covered eyes from which heavy teardrops were dripping. But the teardrops weren't glowing with the same supernatural light the ready of her did. No they were dark, sticky and... red? I frowned. Weird. I tried using my talent, with heavily beating heart. The ghost girl had been awfully quiet. I couldn't hear much, just a faint whisper. I concentrated, something that, believe it or not, is much easier in full daylight then in the middle of the night while facing the crying ghost of a raped fifteen year old girl. My frown grew deeper. I was beginning to make out the words...

"Do you have them?" Sobbing and small cries of pain. "Because he took mine. He to-took them."

"What did he take?" I said, more to myself then to the ghost. She cried harder.

"He took them!" No the whisper was so quiet I could barely hear the last words.

"He took my eyes." I gasped. It wasn't tears it was...

"Oh no." I mumbled. And a sudden wind blew the bangs out of her face. I screamed. I could hear Lockwood yelling "What the hell is going on?" from the room over. But all I could focus on were those black, bloody holes, holes where the eyes of an innocent child should be. The seconds ticked by. My scream began to fade away in the darkness since my voice couldn't keep on screaming like that. My lungs hurt and blue dots were dancing in front of my eyes. The bangs fell back and covered the eyes again, but the picture of her face were engraved in my mind. She didn't whisper anymore, she was more or less screaming:

"WHERE ARE THEY? HE TOOK THEM! HE TOOK MY EYES!" And then a long, ear-piercing scream of pain.

A heavy thud beside me and a strong arm around my waist, pulling me closer, told me that Lockwood had jumped down to me.

"What's happening Lucy?" I was in some kind of trance, and my voice was hollow when I answered him:

"Her eyes... he cut out her eyes."

I could almost hear how Lockwood turned pale beside me.

And then, I heard something much scarier then everything I'd encountered that night: a whisper that didn't belong to the ghost or Lockwood, a whisper inside of my head (detail worth knowing: the skull was home):

"Lucy..."

I jolted.

"W-what?" I asked with a trembling voice.

"Lucy..." said Lockwood with an uncertain voice. "I didn't say anything."

"Lucy... help me. Help her. Give her... your eyes."

"Why?" I said. Tears were now streaming down my cheeks. Afterwards, I wonder what scared me the most: the calm voice inside my head, or the fact that I weren't questioning the action of cutting out my eyes, just the reason behind it.

"Because she needs them. And I'm willing to do anything to be forgiven. By her. By my village. Even by you. Please..."

The fright had built a pressure on my chest, so heavy I could barely breathe. If I was panicking before, it was nothing to now. I couldn't breathe... I was in a trance. Should I... I took a small, hesitating step forward. I heard Lockwood gasp as he took my arm.

"No Lucy... Lucy what are you doing?"

"She needs eyes. She wants to see."

"No Lucy." Just as for me, something has changed with his voice. It was more empty, more hollow, just a shadow of its usual happy, sorrow less self. He grabbed my other arm and turned me around.

"She's not getting your eyes. Okay?"

It was such a surreal conversation, and afterwards I wonder if it wasn't just as hard for him to see me like this, as it was for me to even consider tearing my eyes out. He was staring into them now. His deep, dark irises met my chocolaty.

"Please. For me." His voice was now a hoarse whisper. I was overwhelmed with the strangest of feelings: I felt fragile and scared, but still safe and slightly more confident when he was holding me like he did. My usual, strong, feminist me would scream if she was there. But she wasn't. It was another me and another Lockwood. Maybe that was why I even listened to the voice from the beginning. Maybe that was why he was holding me. But I do know that's the reason he kissed me. It happened so fast, I barely had the time to register what was going on. Before I knew what he was doing, he had leaned forward and his lips had met mine. The pressure on my chest eased up and my hollow soul, that had felt uncertain and strange ever since my meeting with the Hollow Boy was whole again. I felt warm despite the fact that my skin was freezing and my stomach was turning inside out. And the kiss itself... it was gentle and caressing, hesitant and cautious, it was many days of fantasising and even more nights of dreaming. It was memories and promise, bravery and shyness, ice and fire. I instinctively closed my eyes and momentarily forgot who I was, who Lockwood was, that I was snogging my boss in a hotel, 0.5 metres from a dangerous ghost that wanted to cut my eyes out.

I know that it's a cliche, and an overused one, but I honestly don't know for how long we stood there. I don't remember when we broke free, who broke the kiss, how we found the source (the bones of the raped girl who had been buried under the floorboards in a box), or how we got away alive, because all I could think of was Lockwood. Lockwood standing close to me. Lockwood mumbling things I couldn't concentrate on. Lockwood's warm body "accidentally" bumping into mine. Tall Lockwood, happy Lockwood, newly kissed Lockwood. I remember discussing the fact that it was both the rapist's and the girls ghosts that haunted the place and I remember getting extra payment from the owner for the trouble. Then I only remember that we somehow got out of the house and the next thing I remember is that we were walking home on the, by rain, wet street. We were quiet, both too shy to say something and break the magic. The force, the invisible bond , the... something between us that felt so frightfully big and powerful, the magic we didn't want to risk breaking. I don't know what to call it. Love sounds cheesy, force sounds weird, bond sounds... well, like we've been together for years. Whatever it was, I didn't want to ruin it. But after fifteen minutes I couldn't hold myself anymore.

"Lockwood?"

I breathed out. The magic was still there.

"Yes?"

"Have you... have you wanted to do this? I mean, with me."

Lockwood stopped. His gaze seemed to pierce me, drill holes into my heart. I looked down on the ground, suddenly blushing.

"I don't know." He said thoughtfully. I jolted as he lifted his hand to my face, but he was only putting a strand of my short brown hair behind my ear.

"Ever since I first met you I've been wondering why my feelings towards you have been so... overprotective. Why I don't fancy the idea of you talking to other guys. Why I want to make it as clear as possible that I'm not, never have, and never will fancy Holly without being too obvious. But it wasn't until you-know-what happened by the well in the case with shrieking staircase that I began wondering if I might consider you as more then a friend. At first I tried to deny it, after all I am your boss and I was sure that you'd hate me if you knew... so I kept telling myself that I wasn't in love with you. But after your encounter with the hollow boy... I think I finally understood. Understood that you can't just push a button to turn off your feelings. And... tonight I finally did it. What I haven't dared dreaming of, but what I in the night's unwatchful hours might have hoped for. Lucy... I just want to make sure that whatever you think, this is definitely not a one time thing. I don't know about you, but I 100 % want a relationship, no matter how weird and inappropriate it is for a boss to date his employee."

I looked at him. A smirk was on its way.

"It will be awfully awkward to tell George."

He seemed to sense the humour in my tone because he smiled teasingly.

"I'm ready to take the awkwardness. Wow that sounded as not-ridderly as things can get."

"Holly will be even worse. She'll bake cakes and insist that we 'take a day off to do something together'."

"Then we'll just tell her that we rather fight ghosts."

I smiled and gave him a quick peck at the cheek. I didn't dare to do more for the moment because I was already fearing I would explode if the tickling feeling in my stomach would grow.

We stood silent. I took a deep breath.

"Can I hold your hand?"

"No."

"Why not?" I tried to hide my disappointment.

"Because it will hurt too much when you let go." That was too much. It was cheesy and not spontaneous at all, but it was so cute I burst into tears.

"Lucy!"

"I-I'm so-sorry. It's just... I think I've wa-wanted this for su-such a long time and..." Lockwood shut me up by moving closer until there was no atoms, no air, no irritating and unnecessary space between us. I lost track of my words, too scared and at the same time too bold to talk. And when his lips touched mine my stomach exploded. It was a light, tickling, and at the same time dangerous explosion sending chills down my spine and adrenaline out in my blood. I had never felt something like this before. It felt like fireworks, like magnesium flares, like someone stabbing me, like butterflies with razor wings cutting my insides with light wing beats.

"Are you sure you don't want to hold hands?" I said as he let go of me.

He smiled at me. It wasn't the hundred giga watt smile he usually fired off as if it cost him nothing (which it technically didn't) but a smaller, warmer and more hesitant one. One that felt far more personal, as if he had saved it specially for me. It spread it's warmth out in my very fingertips as Lockwood leaned forward, resting his forehead on mine.

"I take back that: the pain is totally worth it."

So we walked home, hand in hand, and for once we didn't have to be grown ups, owning our own money, worrying for things as bills and risking our lives, but we could be the people we actually were: just two hopelessly in love teenagers, far too small and inexperienced to understand something as big as love.


End file.
